When Random House unveiled three new e-book imprints last week — and revamped an extant one — to give the publishing giant a beachhead in the growing world of genre digital publishing, things didn’t end up going so well. The problem was the contracts offered by the Loveswept, Hydra, Flirt and Alibi imprints, which put a new financial burden on writers while simultaneously removing the payment of advances and extending publishing rights through the length of copyright.

In response to leaked versions of the contract, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America announced that the imprints “can not be use[d] as credentials for SFWA membership,” nor would be considered an approved market due to the non-payment of writers, with SFWA president and author John Scalzi calling the contract “genuinely shameful” and “A HORRIBLE AWFUL TERRIBLE APPALLING CONTRACT WHICH IS BAD AND NO WRITER SHOULD SIGN IT EVER.”

In the face of such upset, Random House announced on Tuesday that it would change its contracts, offering prospective authors a choice between a 50/50 profit share with no upfront money and a more traditional advance-plus-royalty model where authors receive some money prior to release, as well as 25 percent of whatever profits the title generates upon publication.